EU must avoid escalation in trade dispute with U.S.: Germany’s Scholz

BERLIN (Reuters) – The European Union must continue to act calmly and level-headedly in the trade dispute with the United States to avoid an escalation that could hurt growth, German Finance Minister Olaf Scholz said on Tuesday.

“Of course it’s important that not all possible topics are linked in these negotiations, that we’ll also have rules-based free trade in the future,” Scholz said during a news conference.

Scholz said that Europe should stick to its principle of free trade while trying to avoid being dragged into an escalation of ever more restrictive measures on trade.